Worcester Car Crash Report 2013 Series

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) recently published data on vehicle collisions in Worcester during 2013. This data shed light on some interesting – and in some cases unexpected – trends in auto accidents.

This article is Part 2 of our Four-Part Series on Worcester Crash Data. Here, we focus on the most dangerous types of vehicles and the severity of collisions.

The Most Dangerous Types of Vehicles

According to MassDOT, the vast majority of auto accidents in Worcester in 2013 involved passenger cars. The data shows that:

63.9 percent of accidents involved passenger cars

28.7 percent of accidents involved light trucks

2.7 percent of accidents involved tractor trailers, semi-trucks, and other large commercial trucks

0.8 percent of accidents involved buses

0.7 percent of accidents involved motorcycles

3.2 percent of accidents involved unknown vehicles

This data is generally consistent with the national figures published by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), which shows that 65 percent of all auto accidents in the United States in 2013 involved passenger vehicles.

Interestingly, IIHS also publishes vehicle crash statistics by vehicle make and model. This data is only current to model year 2011, but of course many millions of 2011 vehicles are still on the roads. According to IIHS, the most dangerous vehicle from 2011 was the Kia Rio, which had a death rate of 149 per million registered vehicle years. This is well above the average rate of 28 per million. Some of IIHS’s other more dangerous makes and models from 2011 include (death rate is in parentheses):

Chevrolet Aveo (99)

Chevrolet Suburban 1500 2WD (60)

Hyundai Accent 2-door (86)

Hyundai Accent 4-door (120)

Mazda 6 (54)

Some of the least dangerous vehicles from 2011 according to IIHS are:

Acura TL 2WD (5)

Audi A4 (0)

Chevrolet Equinox (5)

Ford Flex 2WD (5)

Honda Pilot 4WD (2)

Kia Sorento 2WD (0)

Subaru Legacy 4WD (0)

Toyota Highlander hybrid 4WD (0)

Crash Severity

Roughly 25 percent of all accidents in Worcester in 2013 resulted in injuries. However, only nine of the 4,920 accidents during 2013 were fatal. The majority of these fatal accidents occurred near the middle of Worcester (as did the majority of accidents generally), though there was one fatality in the northern corner of the city on E. Mountain Street.

Nearly 75 percent of accidents – 3,685 in total – involved a two-vehicle collision. 840 were single-vehicle accidents, while 394 involved three or more vehicles. This includes a single collision involving 72 vehicles on Route 290 on December 1, 2013. The massive pileup occurred when temperatures dropped suddenly, causing freezing rain to turn into black ice on an elevated section of the highway.

Read the Rest of Our Four-Part Series on Worcester Crash Data

For more statistics and information on common causes of car accidents in Worcester, you can read the rest of our Four-Part Series:

With 25 plus years of trial experience, Peter Ventura is a seasoned personal injury attorney who has recovered millions of dollars in compensation for his clients. This includes a million-dollar auto accident award and several other accident awards worth $100,000 or more. If you have been injured in a collision in Worcester, contact attorney Peter Ventura for a free consultation today.

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